CATS

The Capital Area
Timex/Sinclair Users
Group

The New England Sinclair QL
Users Group (NESQLUG) Hosts:

The Fourth North
American QL Show

“QLBoston”

Saturday, May 18th, 9 AM until 5PM The
show will be located in Bedford, Massachusetts, just
15 miles NW of Boston. Bedford, and the two
bordering of towns of Lexington and Concord,
contain many historical sites and museums, including
the sites of the first battles of the American
Revolution, Minuteman National Park, Louisa May
Alcott house, Walden Pond, the Henry Thoreau
house, and many others.

The QL Show will be held at the:
Bedford Ramada Inn,
340 Great Road,
Bedford, Massachusetts 01730
Tel: In US (800) 228-2828 or (617) 275-6700
Fax: 617 275-3011

A block of 25 rooms has been reserved for Friday and Saturday
the 17th & 18th of May, 1996, for those attending the show, at
reduced price of just $49 per night - 1 or 2 persons, and $10
more for an additional person. This price also includes an ‘all
you can eat’ American style buffet breakfast. Please mention the
‘QL show’ when you call, in order to get this special price.
Additional nights are $59 per night, for 1 or 2 people. Rooms
must be reserved not later than April 27th, Three weeks prior to
the meeting.

If you reserve a room at the Ramada by April 27th, you may
pay the $5 entry fee at the show. If you don't plan to stay at the
Ramada, please send the $5 check, by May 10th, to :

Gary Norton

43 Richardson St.,

Billerica, MA 01821 USA

E-mail : norton @prevline.health.org

Tel : (508) 667-2048
Contact Gary, if you would also like a packet of maps and
tourist information.

The entry fee on the day of the show, will be $7.

Vol. 13 No. 9 - 10
Mar. - Apr. 1996

THE AGENDA

Frid ay, 17 May (Optional) Meet in Ramada Inn Lounge at 7
PM, to share rides to the Willow Pond Restaurant in
Concord, an informal Pub that offers meals starting under $5
and twin lobster dinners for $14.95.

Saturday, 18 May

8:00 AM ` Meeting room on the 3rd floor of Ramada Inn,

opened for vendors

9:00 - Noon General Meeting- Coffee and Tea will be provided.

Noon - 1:00 Meeting Room closed for lunch break. ( NOTE :

Only sandwiches are available for lunch at the
Ramada Inn, but there are a variety of eating
places near the meeting location.)

1:00 - 4:40 General Meeting.

4:30-5:00 Vendors remove

Numerous valuable QL hardware/software doorprizes will be

given away all day !

6:00 - 6:30 Reception - 2nd floor Banquet Room: Cash Bar

open all evening.

6:30-7:45 The QL Banquet (see below!).

7:50 -9:00 A QL Quorum - a panel of knowledgeable
volunteers will (try to) answer your questions from the
floor, and offer opinions. Evening ends with a folk song
sing-along, general discussions, and elbow bending until
they throw the stragglers out at midnight.

Sunday, 19 May
Continued on page 2...

ent from room.

ui

From the Editor:

We’re still at Hyattsville!

April and March meetings were on, and both
meetings produced fruitful afternoons of
discussion and learning.

April will be the next Paste-up Month.
Bring the articles you'd like to see in the

newsletter and I’ll pick them up to include in
the newsletter. Or post them to the club
address on the Internet (see back page).

Get Well Soon! Bob Diggs has been
dealing with his heart again. Get well notes
may be sent via snail mail, or to

rd0007 @ epfl2.epflbalto.org

From page 1...

9:00 AM - ? QLunch - at Dorothy and Al Boehms’, 33
Selfridge Rd, Bedford. Several QLs and QXLs
will be set up in separate rooms for demos and
discussions. Coffee, tea, and donuts in the
morning. Cold cut buffet sandwiches, for lunch.
Leave only when you have to.

The Saturday Night QL Banquet

The cost is $19.95, and seating will be limited to the
first 60 people making reservations. Contact Gary Norton
to reserved your seat, no later than May 10th. If you stay
at the Ramada Inn, you may pay for the Banquet when
you arrive. If not please send a check, made out to Gary
Norton, also by May 10th.

The Banquet Menu

Fruit cup and Garden salad
Boiled Boston Scrod (a tasty white meat fish)
or
Baked chicken with Supreme Sauce
with
Roasted Potatoes and Green Beans
Almondine
and
New England Shortcakes with Strawberries

The following vendors and QL notables have indicated
they are planning to come:

Stuart Honeyball.............. Miracle Systems

Jochen Merz: .isisscsg-cestise Jochen Merz Software

Urs Kolgans anan COWO Eiectronica
(Switzerland)

Frank & Carol Davis........ Mechanical Affinity and
UPDATE Magazine

Bill Cables cscs teens Wood and Wind Computing

Roy Wodi ai Q Branch

Bob Dy lisicsvssctcascaccsecsievs ces IQLR

Others that are trying to make arrangements to come
include : Tony Firshman and Lou Reeves
John and Val Taylor - from Quanta
Bill Richardson - from W. N. Richardson & Co.
Albin Hessler - from Alben Hessler Software.
Bill Cable - is the designated vendor and “point-of-
contact:”

RR3 Box 92,

Cornish, NH 03745 USA

E-mail: bcab@prevline.health.org

Tel: (603) 675-2218

A NEW HOUSE FOR THE
QL
by
LeBaron H. Washignton

After years of tolerating various components of my
“QL system” and all of the interconnecting cables
associated therewith, occupying most of the space on my
desk, I decided it was time to take action.

At this point the “system” consisted of the following:

The QL (in the lower half of its case.)

Two 5 '/." floppy disk drives,

Two 3 '/," ED floppy disk drives.

One 540 Meg IDE hard disk drive.

One AT style keyboard.

One Expansion Board

One Super Gold Card.

One Qubbesoft IDE disk driver card.

One Faulkenberg keyboard interface.

One Hayes compatible 2400 Baud modem.

One overworked QL power supply.

And one 250W PC switching PSU. (to power the
drives)

My intention was to someday incorporate this collection
of hardware into a TOWER case -, and life would be
beautiful and I could again see the top of my desk.

TO move this project ahead, I purchased a “Mini
Tower” case, measuring 13 ‘/,” high by 7 ‘/;” wide and
16 '/." long. I knew it would be a close fit to
accommodate the QL mother-board but thought it a
possibility.

The new case had a spot-welded inner structure
designed to support the PC motherboard oriented
vertically, and the satellite plug-in boards inserted from
the back. It became immediately apparent that the inner
structure had to go. At the front of the case (behind the
plastic trim panel), there was a separate bracket which
extended from the approximate mid-point vertically to
the bottom of the case. This bracket carried the
loudspeaker which was supplied with the case. It was
necessary to remove the bottom portion of this bracket so
that the QL motherboard could extend into the cavity
behind the plastic front trim panel.

The cage designed to support the back end of the PC
expansion boards projected in towards the center of the
case and would interfere with the “Powered Backplane”
of the QL. This was removed. The case as received had
a circular opening in the back panel which I believe was
provided for the PC keyboard connector to plug into the
motherboard. I made an adapter plate to fit over this
opening and supported a seven circuit circular DIN
receptacle which is the connection for a RGB monitor.
On the back towards the other side at about the same
height, I put a hole approximately */," in diameter to
mount another circular DIN connector, this one being a 5
circuit connector for the keyboard cable.

This Tower Case has on the front panel the power
on/off switch; openings for two 3 '/," Floppy Drives, and

CATS Page 2 March - April ‘96

r ^

two 5 '/;" Floppy Drives, an LED
display showing the CPU operating
frequency; a reset switch, a turbo
switch, a key lock switch, and LED
pilot lights for Power(ON), Turbo,
and HDD access. To date I have
not connected the Lock switch or
the Turbo switch.

The motherboard was removed
from its case and the 5 Volt
regulator, its heat sink, the standoff
post and the socket for the regulator
were removed from the board. A
jumper was soldered into the board
between the pad for pin one of the
regulator and the pad for pin three
of the regulator. This was installed
on the bottom (or trace) side of the
board. The reason for doing this is
that the whole system will be powered by the 250W PC
switching power supply. The reset switch was removed
(desoldered) from the board and pins made of brass wire
were formed in a “L” shape where the short leg will be
soldered into the PC board and the long leg will plug into
the connector on the leads from the front panel “Reset”
switch. The pins are bent to conform to the pin spacing of
the connector on the reset switch leads. There are six
solder pads associated with the switch. Two of these are
electrically inactive.

0 0
0 0---- >
TO FRONT PANEL RESET SW.
0 0------ >
RESET SWITCH PADS

VIEW FROM TRACE SIDE OF MOTHERBOARD

| decided to mount the motherboard on stand-off
insulators spaced */,” up from the bottom of the Tower
Case. The idea for doing this was to avoid a lip turned
up at the bottom of the opening at the front of the case
and to provide space for running wires under the
motherboard if necessary as well as to allow the passage
of cooling air under the motherboard. I used three
commercially available nylon threaded stand-off
insulators and three specially made threaded delrin stand-
off insulators. The delrin insulators were made with a
shoulder and a */,."_ diameter projection about '/;." long to
fit the three */\<” holes in the motherboard. All of the
stand-off insulators were threaded through with a 6-32
NC thread. In addition to the six stand-offs, I made six
delrin pylons which were located under the center of the
six socketed chips (20 pins or more). These pylons were
fastened to the bottom of the Tower case, but not
fastened to the motherboard. The purpose of these is to
minimize destructive flexing of the motherboard during
chip removal or insertion. The 3 pin socket for the QL
power was removed from the motherboard since the QL
will now be powered at the Backplane.

The Tower case as received had openings in the back

| can now see the
top of my desk
again—che world 1s

pull of

enughcenmenc—and
che GL works Uke a
dream,

panel for the previously mentioned
keyboard connector, openings for
two nine pin “D” connectors, and
Openings for two DB25 connectors

With the thought that the
expansion of the QL’s capability
will undoubtedly involve additional
thru-the-case connectors, I have
designed and fabricated a back
panel for the Tower which provides
positions for six additional
connectors: three 9 pin “D” and
three DB25. The opening for the 9
pin "D” connectors will also
accommodate the 15 pin “D”
connectors for used for VGA
monitors. Openings for connectors
for the Joy tick port and openings
for the Network ports could easily
be incorporated.

| can now see the top of my desk again—the world is full
of enlightenment—and the QL works like a dream,

(Life in the IBM World...)

Do You Want to Make a Deal

or Pay Full Price?
by
STEPHEN MANES
Abstracted from: The New York Times: Tuesday,
September 5. 1995 (and Ruth Fegley)

ON the left of the Egghead Software shelf sits a box of
software priced at $209.93.

ON the right is a virtually identical box at $439.83. The
$229.90 difference? The left-hand box is prominently
labeled “Upgrade.” The other one might as well be
labeled: “Ridiculously overpriced! For suckers only!”
The second box is the computer world’s equivalent of
the full-fare airplane seat or the rack-rate hotel room,
with even less reason for existence. After all, bedrooms
and airline seats are territory. With software, there is
always time to crank out another copy.

AS with airlines, discounts on the most popular kinds of
software are many and the best deal is usually the
“version upgrade.” which gives you a big discount on a
new version of your existing software. Not quite as good
is the “competitive upgrade” which give you a bonus for
switching from one product to another. Both types tend
to be cheapest immediately after a product is introduced.
FOr all this you can thank competition. Software
makers remain so desperate to increase their shares of the
PC market that they are still willing to cut very attractive
deals to woo customers. But this consumer bonanza may
not last forever. In the world of the Apple Macintosh,
where competition is less intense. competitive upgrades
are becoming harder to find. As Microsoft tightens its

. grip on the desktop, the same thing could well happen in

the PC world.

CATS Page 3 March - April ‘96

THE CAPITAL AREA TIMEX/
SINCLAIR USERS GROUP is a not-for-
profit group serving the interests of those
who own, use, or are interested in the
Timex/Sinclair family of computers.

Membership:

User Group memberships cost $10.00 per
year, are good for 12 months and include all
privileges (access to software libraries, group
buys, etc.).

ee a eee

eee Mail dues to:

Chairman Monthly position | LeBaron (Barry) Washington
Vice-Chairman Monthly position | 7044 Cindy Lane

Recording Secretary Monthly position | Annandale VA 22003

Corresponding Secretary Joe Miller
Treasurer Barry Washington
Newsletter Editor Mark Fisher
Voice, FAX, and DATA for articles:

(301) 589-7407

Networks

Internet: send article submissions (short or
long) to our club address, below.

Timex SIG on Compuserve: Wednesday
night 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (G
CLUB)

Monthly meetings are held from 12:00 M to | QBOX BBS: (810) 254-9878

4:30 PM on the second Saturday of each CATS on I ,

month at the Hyattsville Library. on Internet:

Meetings:

mf0002 @ epfl2.epflbalto.org

A FIRST CkASS

Annandale VA 22003 f

University Ave.

Hyattsville Public
Library e Fy pA

East-West Hwy.

LAMBERT, DONALD $
1301 KIBLINGER PLACE

AUBURN, IN 46706-3010

The next two meetings of CATS will be held on: April 13

(Paste up for May - June),

and... May 11, 1996

2:00 PM General meeting
Hyattsville Public Library

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